It would seem from the presentations at the Esri Federal User Conference 2016 held in Washington D. C. this week, that the federal government is becoming more “open” on the subject of data, while at the same time protecting the nation’s security perhaps more fiercely than ever.

ArcGIS Earth from Esri, a free, desktop-based interactive globe that can be used to explore the world, was launched last week. The globe works with various 3D and 2D map data formats including KML, Google’s data format. Among its capabilities are the ability for users to display data on the globe, sketch place marks, measure distances and areas, and add annotations for easy understanding of spatial information.

In a world that is rapidly becoming less paper based and more dependent upon digital products, the introduction of a map app that copies the model of iTunes and Kindle is an appealing commodity. Avenza’s PDF Maps does just this: makes PDF maps downloadable on mobile devices to be available anywhere – while abroad, in remote areas and in the back country.

Many changes have taken place in Online GIS and geospatial course offerings over the past year, since we first covered the topic on GISCafe. The range of topics has increased to include even courses for high schoolers, and the ever popular drone classes and Geodesign. The popularity of “Massive Open Online Courses” or MOOCs allows colleges and universities to teach thousands of students at one time, at their convenience, rather than at a prescribed day and time.

Trimble Geospatial announced several new solutions at INTERGEO in Frankfurt, Germany this past month. Tim Lemmon, marketing director Geospatial Software for Trimble and Todd Steiner, marketing director for Imaging and UAS platform for Trimble. outlined what the new products and enhancements are for this release.

Michael Healander, founder of Geometri, spoke with GISCafe Voice about the evolution of that company, and the recent announcement from Geographic Information Services, Inc. (GISi) an Esri Platinum Partner, that its Board of Directors has formally approved the spin-off of its operating unit, GISi Indoors, as an independent company. The new business is named Geometri, LLC., Geometri is the name of their flagship indoor GIS software-as-a-service product.

Healander said he and Lee Lichlyter, CEO of Geometri and former CEO of GISi, are looking for strategic partners in the industry so they can grow faster. Geometri is still part of the GISi family but is now more of a holding company.

GISi was one of ten Esri platinum partners and now Geometri is part of the Esri startup program.

“The reason we got into indoor mapping,” said Healander, “Is we focused on the fact that when you go indoors you lose your navigation on your phone. And there’s a lot of opportunity as people spend money indoors. It’s hard to navigate, and we took on that problem. We built a platform and called it Geometri. We have taken complex pieces of technology to create indoor GPS, whether indoor maps, indoor routing or indoor search. We’ve taking the outdoor routing algorithms that we used in our main company and now we make them for indoor.”